When playing a RPGish game, I often want to play those characters in JA2. So like any sane person would, I then use tools to wade through the games intestines, pull out horrifiyng amounts of soundfiles and then create new mercenaries. This always takes a hideous amount of time and is highly demotivating in the process (every time so far I quit modding for a few months), but, ehh, that's the price of doing things or sth.

Both Ryder's are basically rookies. Think of proto-Shepard. Both have potential, but still have a long, long way to go. Both lead squads in ME:A, so Deputy is a set trait. While edmortimer will likely object due to their abysmal leadership, this is actually intended for once. A somewhat interesting part in the game is that they basically earn their rank by a combination of nepotism and everybody wearing idiot hats, and they have to measure up quickly. In that regard, the Deputy-trait only reaches its full potential if the merc has a higher level than others, so... these 2 better learn fast :-)

As to their ingame persona, Sara has a rather sunny disposition, dabbled in archeology and had brief military training as a comms specialist in a scout regiment. That sufficiently justifies the scout trait, and we finally have another merc with radio operator. It also leads to her buddies & hatreds:

Buddies:

Sara obviously likes her twin, Scott. On that nore, it's kinda odd that sexism and looks would ever factor in between siblings (twincest?), but that's a code limitation.

Both twins also like Sam (why do all modern RPGs have a character that is called Sam or sth. similar?). Let's just say that he's an old family friend that they know since they were little. Yeah, that works.

Given that she's bloody noob, she is looking for role models, which Shepard would be. Somewhat one-sided, as Shepard has no time for babysitting.

Ice's friendly personality makes Sara rather appreciate him.

Raven is a another role-model for Sara.

Similar, she does grow up to like Stella, the gruff veteran with a heart of gold.

Hatreds:

As Sara has a degree in archeology, she has heard of the infamous Tomb Raider, and is more than a bit hostile to Lara.

Considering that Scully has a certain... reputation, it's easy to see why she would be wary here.

Jimmy is a notorious criminal. We might be new, but that guy is obviously bad news.

Rudolf is, well, an asshole. No further explanation needed.

Anybody listening to Sparky can probably agree that she can be rather annoying. Especially when she, like, talks and stuff.

While initially very friendly to Lance Fisher (another rookie! From Westpoint! This will be great!), his cowardice makes Sare hostile to him long-term.

Scott joined AIM after being bored in the military (somehwat hilarious in ME:A, Mom Ryder was a brilliant AI scientist, Dad Ryder was crack special forces (and also an abusive nutjob that should have been airlocked long ago), Sara was earning degrees in frontier archeology, and Scott... guarded the space equivalent of a slip-road). Compared to Sara, he is a bit more hands-on, so he gets throwing and Gunslinger. His buddies and hatreds are:

Buddies:

Sara, obviously.

Also, Sam.

He can be rather superficial, so... Fox for obvious reasons. Also decidedly non-mutual.

He got the idea to join AIM in the first place by a chance encounter with a few older mercs, like Hitman, who has taken a liking to him, and taught him a few things (see? throwing! It's all connected!)

Gary is another young man with a mercenary family, so the two have quite a few things in common. Not that their sisters would ever agree to that.

Hector is another rookie just starting his career, it stands to reason the two would get along.

If you ask him, he'd tell you that Meltdown has more than a few screws loose.

Snake is some sneaky git. We obviously can't trust him.

How is Kaboom even employed anymore? That guy is unhinged!

Leech utter disregard for decency will alienate Scott in the long-term.

While creating these two, I did minor alterations to Lara - she now also hates Ivan, due to her traumatic adventure in Siberia, and also because that one voice line has her complaining that she doesn't know enough russian to understand, which, well, fits so much I made a hatred out of it.
Additioanlly, Lara and Shepard have more battle sounds now, so there is now more variation when ordering them around.

Furthermore, these mercs now demonstrate how additional dialogue works, because I added a ton of it (the entire thing is now ~88 MB).

As these mercs are not JA-canon, they obviously won't enter any official 1.13 release.

The files are all based upon GameDir r2399. They will also work for older releases, like anything r7609-based. In that regard, the voicesets I used are, like the profile slots, 212 and 213, so there will be no need to rename them in r7609-releases.

Very cool! And no, I don't object to the deputy trait as it is, as you mention, limited by level - and we all have encountered those bossy types who are basically wannabes and have no real idea on how to lead. And a big thank you for making them r7609-compatible! They'll go in AV immediately . . . or as soon as I get their portraits from Mass Effect onto them (which you are welcome to use if you so desire).

@Flugente - if you have a favorite version of the Ryder twins for their JA2 portraits just upload them for me to work on. Since I've never played Mass Effect I don't really have a preference, and the graphics online are very varied. Personally, I like the blue hair Sara . . . but that's just me.

@edmortimer: Blue hair? Are you attempting to trick me to add more hair colours :-)
I would somewhat prefer two asian faces, cause then, you know, we'd have more asian people besides Q and Tex. 'Sara' and 'Scott' are generic enough. Perhaps something like this?https://imgur.com/rEQaaoe
I am somewhat hesistant to artstyle different from JA2, but might be worth a shot...

@Gopas: Oh boy. This answer might get a bit long and... subjective, but it's not like space is limited here. Anyway...

Mass Effect Andromeda is a game that isn't nearly as bad as the internet would want you to believe, but does have a lot of issues. Sadly, a lot of those issues could have been avoided.

Some mechanics are actually pretty good. Combat itself is the best it has ever been in the series. Too easy later on, even with on the highest difficulty, but a huuuge step up from the awful combat of ME1 and ME2. (In that regard, in case anybody says combat in ME2 is good, start ME2, pick adept without taking Energy Drain and do Jack's retrieval mission with Jacob, Mordin and without fancy DLC guns. ME2 combat was better than ME1, but still suucked). I wished we had a bit more enemy variation - there is no difference in how you tackle each faction - and melee enemies are useless thanks to our jumpjets, but it is solid.
This can be improved with mods.

We have bossfights now. That's new. But it's always the exact same boss, so... why?
This can not be improved with mods.

Graphics are stunning, but at the same time are a huge resource hog, but that's normal for PC games.
This can be improved with mods.

Animations were bad, and justly criticized on release. I only got the game later (why people still buy games from publishers like EA on full price is beyond me) when there were quite a few patches, and it was okay.
This can be improved with mods.

Item management gets a huge plus for all the different guns and armor... and a huge minus for the fact the huge amount of junk. Crafting us kinda stupid. You simply pick what items you want to use, and every 10 levels craft a slightly better version. What is the point?
What is the point in looting and buying items of the versions you craft are always better (more slots)?
What is the point of all the different recipes if you already know them and simply have to unlock them? This would be a lot better (and more logical) if the crating recipes (at least for non-Milky way stuff) were loot to find. That would actually give you a motivation to hunt items.
This can be improved with mods.

Driving around, exploring planets is the best it ever was. In ME1, each system had exactly one planet to explore... which, most of the time, were 2-3 pointless anomalies and lot of awful, tedious driving.
This can likely not be improved with mods.

We still have minigames. Not sure, because 3 was fine without them, but I personally like Sudoku, so that's okay.
This can be improved with mods.

The Apex system, multiplayer integration and the unlocking of perks via readiness meter... is a thing, I guess. It's pretty pointless, but gives you bit more to do, I guess.
On the plus side, it did give me inspiration for a yet-to-code feature, so yay!
This can perhaps improved with mods, but not much apart from mild number-tweaking.

Multiplayer... exists. With lootboxes. It's a carbon copy from ME3 mutliplayer that somehow manages to be worse in all departments.
Perhaps this can be improved with mods, but really, why bother.

The voice acting ranges from good (I didn't make these mercs because I hate the voices ;-) ) to godamn atrocious. Like weapons-grade awful. Most asari and salarians sound like they are out of some saccharine Disney kids show. On many worlds you will find NPCs with lame dialogue, voiced so boring methinks they cut the budget in this department.
This can be improved with mods, but that would require actual voice actors.

The writing is baaad. Like, really bad. Really bad fanfiction bad. This is the bay of pigs invasion of plots.
Nominally, this is the story of a marooned group of desperate survivors in a harsh galaxy, bereft of hope, out of supplies, scrambling together in a desperate effort to establish in a new and dangerous galaxy, against hostile aliens, harsh surroundings and inner turmoil.
Instead, we get:

A lead character comically unfit to lead, propelled to this position by laughable nepotism. This could lead to an interesting story, where we have to grow and become the leader we should be, but... that never really happens. Some characters simply are a dick to us, regardless of what we do. Our second in command - WHOSE POSITION WE BLATANTLY STOLE - has no problem with this. None whatsoever. And we're never called out for this shit.

Our close companions range from (admittedly, well-done) copies of previous characters (Drack, Vetra) to a complete mess (Peebee) to whatever the hell Liam is supposed to be. Like, Idonteven.

We establish out oh-so desperately needed colonies by doing a bunch of fetch quests nobody else could be bothered to. And solving Sudoku puzzles some ancient bots left behind. Sudoku is important.

The logistics behind this endeavour makes no sense.

New race #1 is the result of someone wanting wanting a Prothean like machine race, but as boring and generic as possible.

New race #2, the generic bad guys, are a copy of the Collectors, just more generic.

New race #3, the generic good guy race, are... there, I guess. They posess no individual traits whatsoever, contrast to existing races. The game says they are oh-so emotional, but react to two plot points that should friggin' rip their society apart with less emotional outburst than I have towards bowel movements.

The fact that, well, we are for once the aliens invading another place, is not used. The only ones hostile to us are made clear to be bad guys, so we can shoot them and feel good about it.

The game quickly establishes that you are the chosen one, due to your ability play uplink to Siri.

The expedition sends out 6 ships. It is required that they work closely together. Naturally, they are sent out alone and at different locations.

The colonisation effort apparently had a huge number of violent outlaws, because reasons.

We are the only person in this galaxy with Sudoku skills.

The motivation and reasoning of your superior officers changes between sentences.

When asked what motivated them to leave their lives, family, friends etc. behind, everybody gives an answer about as convincing as Herman Cain's position on Libya.

It gets even worse once you consider that this plays in the Mass Effect universe:

Mass Effect is (among other things) a series about an eternal struggle between organics and synthetics. The main conflict is with a mythical race of machines that kill everything. Throughout, you fight machines and others brainwashed by those machines attempting to kill everything. Numerous times, machines rebel and try to kill everything. Like, say, that one time in ME2 when a scientist embeds a machine in his brother's head, which goes bad and kills everything.

So naturally, the protagonists father plants a powerful AI in our head. Which, despite what we are told, can kill us comically easy.
Naturally, our main character thinks THIS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER.

The people in this game left the galaxy between ME1 and ME2, so shortly after the synthetic geth attempted to MURDER AND KILL EVERYTHING IN THE NAME OF THE MACHINE-GOD. They also DISMANTLED A MASS RELAY AND MADE A TELESCOPE OUT FROM IT, and told us they found a totally safe galaxy we totally should settle.
Naturally, we did just that.

At the time, many turians were still debating whether it wouldn't have been easier to just bomb these upstart humans into oblivion a bit more.
We somehow get along just swimmingly.

Everybody kinda agrees that Krogan are a brute, extremely agressive race.
Naturally, we made sure to take along a lot of them.

Our second in command is named Cora Harper. Seriously, wtf?

Apart from our squad, which is regularly on side missions, the not-the-Normandy has... 4 personnel total. Soo... if Kallo needs to pee or go to sleep, we just activate the auto-pilot?

The link between the cockpit and the rest of the ship is a thin glas bridge without rails.

The Nexus has a scout ship, but waits using it for 14 months, because they had nobody as awesome as us to stand around on the bridge.

Remember the krogan genophage? You can cure that by just sleeping 600 years, because that's how genetics work.

When you pick up a homicidal AI that tried to kill everything, be sure to store it next to to the AI core of the powerful AI you already have, no supervision needed. That worked well in ME3, it will work well here.

If you played the previous games, you will surely remember how absolutely swimmingly the races worked together by seeing how well they work together here.

Remember Conrad Verner? His sister is here, to pursue her dream career of... being a dancer in a shady club. *cause that wouldn't have worked in the Milky way.

Remember Zaeed? His son is here, to pursue his dream career of... being a grumpy merc. 'cause that wouldn't have worked in the Milky way.

Remember Okeer? One of his scientists is here, to pursue his dream career of... experimenting with shit to cure the genophage. 'cause that wouldn't have worked in the Milky way.

Remember Garrus? We stored some audio links to him, so that you do.

Remember Liara? We stored some audio links to her, so that you do.

Remember the Reapers? We stored some audio links to them, so that you do.

Remember how you can just decide on a whim to be a biotic? That was totally how it worked in previous games, right?

Your characters is meaningless. You are effectively a slave to the personality-free AI that daddy planted in your skull. You are its slave, and you will crave its witty banter, biatch.

In a game rightly criticized for its bad facial animations and voice work, Bioware somehow did not include Quarians, Volus, Elcor and Hanar.

I could list, a lot, lot more of this. I think you get the idea.
This can not be improved with mods.

TL;DR: The worst part of the game is the most important one: the writing. And this cannot be improved. If you can endure the nonsensical plot, you should be fine.

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

Thank you very much for your time in providing all this information. I was not expecting this !! I have played the original trilogy and the ME3 mp is only co-op, which i love. I am still playing it quite often.
The reason for asking your pinion is that my wife wanted to buy it as a Christmas gift to me but i wanted to wait what people think about it. Some comments on Youtube i read, said pretty much the same good, "good graphics, messy story, repetitive boss fights, some bugs,etc". *sigh* i think that i shall put it off for a long time, maybe buy it when it's down to 5 $ .

All in all, i am familiar with the ME universe although i've seen some Andromeda gameplay videos, the fighting looks more like AC Origins. Must be the new way now. Looks a lot like the Witcher games too. Move,hit,shoot,evade,rinse and repeat. Thank you again for all the work to answer just one question. You are a hell of a person

@edmortimer: Blue hair? Are you attempting to trick me to add more hair colours :-)
I would somewhat prefer two asian faces, cause then, you know, we'd have more asian people besides Q and Tex. 'Sara' and 'Scott' are generic enough. Perhaps something like this?https://imgur.com/rEQaaoe
I am somewhat hesistant to artstyle different from JA2, but might be worth a shot...

I'll see what I can come up with from those. I do try to keep it close to JA2 portraiture -- but it is quite difficult at times to get the right . . . . degradation of quality.

Wait, what's wrong with Cora Harper as a name? I mean, as opposed to the lady herself, to which the answers are "Oh my god, where do I even start" and "I hope you got plenty of time to spare".
Also, I definitely want more of that list, it's hilarious.

Considering who else shared that surname, naming a character like that is like naming random rebel officer girl in TLJ 'Shmi Palpatine' and then having her do nothing (which wasn't the case, but would be about as confusing).

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

First of all let me just say thank you for all the work you have been putting on Flugente. I love what you did with the new voice system and, of course, all the new voices you have put on.
I've been following this forum religiously for the past years.

Here's my problem: I don't know why but the files you uploaded to the ftp (the recent ones including the Ryder twins) look corrupted... I mean, I've tried to download it from different computers but the result is the same: when I unzip the files I get a "corrupted file" error. I get some of Lara and Jane's voice files but zero Ryder's ones. These last ones just come with 0 bytes size. Some of the xml files also appear damaged. Is there a way of getting them from a different source?
Could you help me?

Btw, I've been working on the Max Payne character. I'm currently playing with him and I would like to share it with you guys. The voice set is from Max Payne 3. The face... well, it's simply one of the IMP faces (can't remember its id but it's the one that resembles the most to Max Payne 2 character).

Glad you like it. I've now downloaded that file myself (JA2FemShep_LaraCroft_RyderTwins_v15.7z), and it seems fine to me, all sounds play. Did you make sure to use the 7zip program to unpack. What kind of sound files seem corrupted, .wav, .ogg, or both?

When I posted that link, the file was still being procesed by ftp. Perhaps you downloaded it too early? It should have a size of 87.6 MB.

Well, you can always pack your character and upload it for others. I sure as hell won't complain if someone else wades through an entire game to find fitting files. Considering that by game 3 Max is a cynical alcoholic serisal self defender wallowing in his own misery, he sounds like he'll fit right in

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

You were right! I did it with 7zip program and it worked. I was doing it with WinRar before... oh well...
Love the characters!! I'm going to try them out tomorrow. Thank you again Flugent!

Regarding the Max Payne project (lets call it project since I feel that it's a never ending thing... #perfectionist) I would like to upload it here but it seems I have to post 9 more messages to have that privilege. Let's if I can trick this: ufile .io /9cpgt (without the spaces).
I've uploaded the speech, bttlsnds, edt, xml and all the original sound files I could get (so anyone can customize its own Max Payne - good luck). The sound files are rich and wonderful. The only problem is that the majority of them it's him talking about himself in third person (with his inner voice)... which might look cool and all, but after a while doesn't make too much sense when you see him moving his lips to express his inner thoughts...
So I did my best and selected the quotes that made sense regarding that detail.
Another problem it's his appearance... I've selected the black on black wardrobe for him and the IMP 206 face. Why not the white tank top + kaki pants combo (Max Payne 3 style) ? Well... because I didn't think it looked right since his face isn't a bald bearded guy. Speaking of which, can someone work on the face please? I've given up. Can't stand the sti file system too anymore...

Anyway, here's the guy. (I hope you can see the pic)
Bibb .co / hhzdDm (without the spaces again)

Those files are pretty good. And you've included a huge amount of exra files too. The problem of inner monologue isn't that prevalent - given the crazies we have, a guy talking to himself in the past tense isn't the biggest outlier

I'm currently finishing another feature, but... I would like to see more of this. If I can have your permission, could I include your work in mine and include Max in this pack? I'd still try to see if I could whip up a few buddy/hate relations with those files (not sure how likely that is) and would like to make some extra dialogue out of you files of course. I'll probably alter the profle somewhat too, but not without referring back to you, of course. I'd also give you credit, as far as honorary internet points go on something like this

I can't see the pic though. I mostly post on imgur, perhaps that site works slightly better?

Also, we need someone to create a proper Max Payne face from this. Work faster, ed!

[Updated on: Tue, 30 January 2018 03:03]

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

Of course you have my permission. (I would be honored!) Isn't what this forum is all about? The credit would be appreciated thou.

Although I understand what you say about the crazies we have on the game, the fact that he talks most of the time in the past sentence kind of tickles my brain a bit... I mean, my first idea was exactly that, to make him have that "personality" - and it worked great - my problem started when Max was part of a team... it kind of didn't "match" his merc colleagues' present-time-based speech... aaahhh, it's all subjective...

1. Regarding the buddy/hate relationships, my idea was simply liking any merc with a police background (Raven, Raider, Turtle, etc) and hating any criminal (Jimmy, Hitman, Razor and Skitz comes to mind). I haven't had the time to developed that part of Max yet.

2. Regarding the face, my initial idea was a mix of imp206 + Nails mouth (beard) + Jimmy head (bald). But lately I was just trying to convert Reaper's face, figuring out how to make him bald and change his clothing (into a white tank top). I mean, if you cover his hair with your fingers you have the SAME EXACT face of Max Payne 3! Just try it!

3. Regarding the dialogues, I think there is plenty of quotes that one can work with. I'm thinking about your recent "additional dialogue" feature... man, can't wait to explore that.

I'm having a problem with the blue glow on their faces. It's not so noticeable in the originals, but when you reduce the size and colors it becomes very noticeable - especially on Scott. I tried to edit the palette but the result was not good at all. Anyway, take a look, this is what I have at the moment for the BigFace:

@Spinasso: 1.: Don't forget Vinnie. He's exactly the type of New York mobster Max killed by the hundreds, those two would likely have a tense relationship

One idea on Max... I'm not sure whether dialogue allows it, but it would be rather fitting to have him as an RPC. Due to the third game, it would fit to find him in some shady bar in San Mona, trying to once again drown his sorrows in cheap alcohol. Perhaps he came here to collect some bounty? Or does he have some ominous business with some of Kingpin's men?

For once this would be a merc that would fit into the setting, and we need more people that hang around bars anyway...

@edmortimer: That looks very promising

[Updated on: Tue, 30 January 2018 20:41]

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

Vinnie? Of course. I was just naming a few ones...! Vinnie is mandatory!

I thought about the RPC approach but the dialogue does't help much. That is the main reason why I've placed him as an AIM merc. But if you can work something out from the sound files (by "work" I mean do some magical sound editting) that would be awesome!

@edmortimer: I don't want to imagine the amount of work you're having with the face creating "task". I suggested using Reaper's face so that one could simply save some time on the eyes/mouth animation. However, I've been colecting some in-game pics of Max's face for a couple of days... I would like to share them with you if you don't mind. Unfortunately I have not the privilege to post pics at this time, so:

ufile .io / xbzyp (no spaces).
I was thinking "max face 7" file for the BigFace and "max payne face" for the 33, 65, etc (although it's a bit cut on the top). What do you think?

Anyway, thank you for all your work and time that you have been giving to this game. Seriously.

@edmortimer: I don't want to imagine the amount of work you're having with the face creating "task". I suggested using Reaper's face so that one could simply save some time on the eyes/mouth animation. However, I've been colecting some in-game pics of Max's face for a couple of days... I would like to share them with you if you don't mind. Unfortunately I have not the privilege to post pics at this time, so:

ufile .io / xbzyp (no spaces).
I was thinking "max face 7" file for the BigFace and "max payne face" for the 33, 65, etc (although it's a bit cut on the top). What do you think?

Yes, they should work OK. The head is a bit cut off more than usual for JA2, but it may still work out OK.

As a way of making a possible Max Payne merc more... immersive (and reminding me to get my ass to altering stuff), as of GameDir r2404, we have painkillers.
They effectively work like a bottle of small regen boosters (with 20 pills), but is much more addictive. In case you are not aware, most drugs add the Drug Addiction disease, which is not a nice thing to have once it breaks out Each pills heals 6 HP over time.

For the record, this is what happens when you munch too many of the things:

As a result, the best use of painkillers would be to give them to your (hopefully non-addict) doctor, and use them somewhat sparingly to supplement healing.

[Updated on: Wed, 21 February 2018 22:01]

Saren threw his head back and screamed in impotent fury, before falling to his throne, head in his claws, trembling in horrified disbelief.

Then he heard a faint chime as Sovereign subscribed to her ECHO channel.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.